Xayaburi Dam Across The Lower Mekong Is A Bad Idea

Holding back the river would cause irreversible damage to its ecology and destory the life and culture of several unique riverine communities

Maureen Nandini Mitra

April 13, 2011

Back in February, my mother and father-in-law, Pia and Takato,
took several boat trips on the Lower Mekong River, meandering their way from Thailand
to Laos to Cambodia along with farmers, fishermen, their chicken, fish and
other livestock.

Photo by Pia LodbergSubsistence fishing in the Mekong.

They came back with intriguing stories of people from
diverse ethnic groups whose culture and (mostly subsistence) livelihood are
deeply entwined with the flow the Mekong. The river provides them with fish and
tourist trade and, sometimes even gold (gold panning is a key source of income
for many Laotian villagers). In the floodplains along the riverbanks villagers
grow rice and vegetables - to consume and sell at local markets.

The Mekong, I’ve been learning, is one of the most
biodiverse river systems in the world and is host to the world’s most
productive freshwater fishery. More than 60 million people from Thailand, Laos,
Cambodia and Vietnam depend on the lower Mekong River for their livelihoods.

But Pia and Takato also came back with darker stories.
Stories of dams - proposed and existing - that are threatening the unique
livelihoods of these riverine communities as well as the river itself.

China has already placed three dams and plans to put up several
more on the upper reaches of the Mekong. The existing dams, environmentalists
say, have already led to a drop in the river flow - in 2010 parts of the Mekong
were at their lowest level in 50 years - and are causing irreversible change in
the river’s ecology. Then yesterday, I learned of yet another proposed dam
across the river’s mainstream - the first ever on the Lower Mekong - that could
further exacerbate the damage.

The proposed $3.5 billion Xayaburi dam in Laos “would cut
across a stretch of the river flanked by forested hills, cliffs and hamlets
where ethnic minority groups reside, forcing the resettlement of up to 2,100
villagers and impacting tens of thousands of others,” according to an
Associated Press report.
It could also push iconic and endangered fish species, such as the Mekong Giant
Catfish, to extinction, says International
Rivers.

The dam, which would generate power mostly for sale to
Thailand, has pit Lower Mekong villagers and environmentalists against the Thai and Laotian governments (For Laos, one of the world’s
most impoverished countries, the Xayaburi holds dreams of earning valuable
foreign exchange). Chances are if Xayaburi gets the green signal, it would open
the door for more dams on the Lower Mekong.

Courtesy International RiversLocations of proposed Mekong river mainstream dams.

Since 2007, there have been proposals to put up 11 dams for
the Lower Mekong River in Cambodia and Laos. The Xayaburi was the first of these to be submitted for approval in September 2010 by the region’s governments through a regional
decision-making process hosted by the Mekong
River Commission (MRC), a body set up by Laos, Cambodia, Thailand
and Vietnam to manage the river. The commission itself has serious reservations
about Xayaburi.

An MRC study released in February warned that dams could
reduce the fishery by 300,000 tons of fish a year, with serious consequences for a
million people, especially in Cambodia, who depend on fishing. It also feared
damage to migrations of about a 100 fish species, among a host of other
environmental problems. In fact, MRC has recommended a 10-year moratorium on
all mainstream dams on the Lower Mekong.

A decision on the whether to go ahead with Xayaburi or to
impose a moratorium is due next Tuesday (April 19) when the MRC will hold a special
meeting in the Laotian capital city of Vientiane.

For me, the answer is a no-brainer. Big dams need to go the
way of the dinosaurs.

In the past century, poorly-planned, large dams have choked
more than half to our world’s big rivers, wiping out species, flooding vast
swaths of land, displacing millions of, mostly poor, marginalized and
indigenous people. We don’t need more of these when there are better renewable
energy options out there that we can, and must, explore.

Save the already threatened Mekong and the lives and
cultures of the people who live beside it. Write to the region’s governments here asking them to cancel the Xayaburi project.